Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisadesשבת מברכים פרשיות בהר ובחקתי

Shabbat M’varchim Parashiot B’har and B’chukotaiMay 20, 2017 | Iyar 24, 5777

39th Day of the Omer

rurs o,treuProclaim Liberty

TORAH STUDYNext Shabbat: Parashat B’midbar B’midbar 1.1-4.20, pages 769-785

FIRST ALIYAH: The census total here conforms with the census taken in Sh’mot (see Sh’mot 38.26). What is the difference in how each count was done?

FOURTH ALIYAH: “This is the line of Aharon and Moshe at the time Adonai spoke with Moshe on Har Sinai. These were the names of Aharon’s son.” Why is Aharon listed first, and why are Moshe’s sons not named here despite Verse 3.1’s statement?

The haftarah, Hoshea 2.1-22, begins on Page 787.

This Shabbat: M’varchim Parashiot B’har & B’chukotai Vayikra 25.1-27.34, pages 738-757

FIRST ALIYAH: B’har opens with, “Adonai spoke to Moshe on Mount Sinai, saying.” Why is this stated here, and what subject will not appear in Vayikra’s next two chapters?

SIXTH ALIYAH: Verse 27.13 requires the person who wishes to redeem his house to “add one-fifth to the sum at which it was assessed and it shall be his.” Since he consecrated the house for a sacred purpose, should not its actual value be enough?

The haftarah, Yirmiyahu 16.19-17.14, begins on Page 763.

For haftarot, we follow S’fardi custom.

EPILOGUE: BLESSINGS AND CURSESThe Epilogue to the Holiness Code is the only portion of Vayikra that is neither legal nor ritual in nature. In

both form and function, it is the counterpart of D’varim 28-30. Each composition appears after a collection of laws, and seems to reinforce the sanction of those laws. Two major principles of biblical religion find expression in both: the concept of free will, and the doctrine of reward and punishment. Obedience to God’s will brings reward; disobedience brings dire punishment. The choice rests with the people of Israel and its leaders.

The Epilogue may be divided into three sections: (1) The Blessings (vv. 3-13); (2) The Curses (vv. 14-45); and a one-verse postscript (v. 46).

If Israel obeys God’s laws, security, peace, and prosperity is assured. The people will be fruitful, and the land will be abundantly productive. God commits to an enduring covenantal relation with Israel. God’s redemptive power, demonstrated at the Exodus, will be reaffirmed: Israel will be free of oppression.

The Curses are escalating in nature, with admonition heaped upon admonition. If the Israelites do not return to God after one series of tragic circumstances, punishments even more horrible will ensue. Defeat and disease will be followed by natural disasters threatening the fertility of the land. Wild beasts will prey on people and livestock. Invasion, famine, and pestilence will follow. Towns and holy places will be made desolate; starvation will have unimaginable consequences.

The ultimate punishment will be prolonged exile in foreign lands and the danger of collective extinction. At this point, though, a new theme is introduced. A door is opened to divine mercy and forgiveness. A contrite people will confess its sins; in response, God will remember His covenant and the land. The Epilogue ends with a promise of restoration.

Verse 46 concludes the entire Holiness Code, which began in chapter 17.—Adapted from the JPS Commentary to Leviticus

CBIOTP STANDARDS & PRACTICES

1. Men must keep their heads covered in the building and must wear a talit when appropriate. Women may choose to do either or both, but it is not mandatory.2. Anyone accepting a Torah-related honor must wear a talit, regardless of gender.3. Only one person at a time may take an aliyah.4. No one should enter or leave the sanctuary during a K’dushah.One should not leave the sanctuary when the Torah scroll is being carried from or to the ark.5. No conversations may be held in the hallway outside the sanctuary, or while standing in an aisle alongside a pew.

6. The use of recording equipment of any kind is forbidden on sacred days.7. Also forbidden are cell phones, beepers and PDAs, except for physicians on call and emergency aid workers (please use vibrating option).8. No smoking at any time in the building, or on synagogue grounds on Shabbatot and Yom Kippur.9. No non-kosher food allowed in the building at any time.10. No one may remove food or utensils from the shul on Shabbatot. An exception is made for food being brought to someone who is ailing and/or homebound.

HAPPY BIRTHDAYToday Alex Glickman

Wednesday Marlena Salazar

Thursday Amanda Ades

Did we miss a birthday, anniversary, or other simchah? Let us know. We can’t print what we don’t know.

Присоединяйтесь к нам для освящение и обед

Today’s kiddush and luncheon are sponsored by

THE KIDDUSH CLUB.

THE IMAHOT:Following is the text adopted by the Ritual Committee for use by the Prayer Leader in reciting the Amidah, and those wishing to insert the Matriarchs in their Amidot:

SH’MA MATTERS

The blessings before the Sh’ma:

To respond or not?Whenever a blessing is recited, we offer two responses. After “Baruch Ata Adonai” (Blessed are You, Lord), we say

“Baruch Hu, u’varuch Sh’mo” (blessed is He and blessed is His Name). At the end of the b’rachah, we say “Amen.”But should any response be given to the blessings between Bar’chu and the Sh’ma?It is not a frivolous question. These are blessings preparatory to reciting the Sh’ma, putting them in the same catego-

ry as, say, the Motzi. We may not speak after the Motzi until we have eaten bread; may we “speak” until after the Sh’ma?The S’fardi halachic authority, Rabbi Joseph Karo, author of the Shulchan Aruch, Judaism’s definitive law code, says

no. Rabbi Moses Isserles, in his equally authoritative gloss, “the Mapa,” rules that Ashkenazim should respond.Chasidic rulings follow Rabbi Karo, meaning chasidim do not response with “Baruch Hu, u’varuch Sh’mo” and

“Amen.”Either way is acceptable here, although our rabbi’s traditon is to offer no response.

A meditation before the Sh’maBefore reciting the Sh’ma, keep this in mind:

I hereby accept upon myself the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.

MITZVAH MEMOToo many people in our area

do not have food to eat.Please bring non-perishable food

and other items to the shul.* * *

Do you know someone who is homebound?Let us know, so we can check in on them.

GOT SHABBAT?If you know children who might enjoy

Moreh Karen’s Shabbat morning programs, here are the dates in June:

June 3 and 17

For one reason more than any other, Jewish-Christian relations have been scarred by tragedy: the doctrine known as Supersessionist, or Replacement, theology, which maintains that Christianity represents God’s rejection of the Jewish people, the “old Israel.”

It says God once had a covenant with the people of lsrael, but no longer. Hence, the Christian name for the Hebrew Bible: “The Old Testament.” “Old” here means the testament or covenant once in force, but no more. On this view, God no longer wants us to serve Him the Jewish way, through the 613 mitzvot, but a new way, through a “New Testament.” His old chosen people were the physical descendants of Abraham. His new chosen people are the spiritual descendants of Abraham—that is, not Jews, but Christians.

The results of this doctrine were devastating. They were chronicled after the Shoah by the French historian and Holocaust survivor Jules Isaac. Subsequently, they were set out in works like Rosemary Ruether’s “Faith and Fratricide,” and James Carroll’s “Constantine’s Sword.” (See Rosemary Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism, New York: Seabury Press, 1979; James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.)

The story they tell is of a doctrine that led to centuries of persecution and to Jews being treated as a pariah people. Reading Jules Isaac’s work led to a profound change of heart on the part of Pope John XXIII, which led ultimately to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and the declaration Nostra Aetate, which transformed relations between the Catholic Church and the Jews.

I tell the story only because, as we will see, it has been transformed in our time into a narrative of hope. It belongs here because one of the key sources of the untenability of the doctrine appears in this parashah, in perhaps the darkest passage of the entire Torah, the curses of Parashat B’chukotai. Here in the starkest possible terms are set out the consequences of the choices the People Israel must make throughout history. If they stay faithful to God, they will be blessed. If they are faithless, the result will be defeat, devastation, destruction, and despair.

The rhetoric is relentless, the warning unmistakable, the vision terrifying. Yet at the end come these utterly unexpected lines:

“Yet in spite of this, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them: for I am Hashem their God. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am Hashem. (Vayikra 26.44-45)

This is absolutely a fundamental statement. It is the foundation

on which Judaism rests. It says that although the people may be faithless to God, God will never be faithless to the people. He may punish them, but He will not abandon them. He may judge them harshly, but He will not forget their ancestors who followed Him, nor will He break the covenant He made with our ancestors. God does not break His promises even if we break ours. “I, Hashem, do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed” (Malachi 3.6).

There were moments of crisis when Jews feared that all was lost. The Talmud describes a conversation between the Jewish exiles in Babylon and a prophet:

Samuel said: Ten men came and sat down before the prophet. He told them, “Return and repent.” They replied, “If a master sells his slave, or a husband divorces his wife, has one a claim upon the other?” Then the Holy One, Blessed Be He, said to the prophet, “Go and say to them: Thus says Hashem, ‘Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins, you were sold; because of your

transgressions, your mother was sent away.” (Yishayahu 50.1; BT Sanhedrin 105a)

The Talmud places in the mouths of the exiles an argument that would later be repeated by Spinoza that the very fact of exile terminated the covenant between God and the Jewish people (see Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, part 1, chap. 3). God had rescued them from Egypt and thereby become their only sovereign, their king. But now, having allowed them

to suffer exile, He had abandoned them. The result was that they were under the rule of another king, the ruler of Babylon. It was as if He had sold them to another master, or as if Israel were a wife God had divorced. Having sold or divorced them, God could have no further claim on them.

It is precisely this that the verse in Yishayahu—“Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of My creditors did I sell you?”—denies. God has not divorced, sold, or abandoned His people. That, too, is the meaning of the great prophecy in Jeremiah:

“This is what Hashem says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—Hashem Almighty is His name: “Only if these decrees vanish from My sight,” declares Hashem, “will Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.” This is what Hashem says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of lsrael because of all they have done,” declares Hashem. (Yirmiyahu 31:34-36)

Yishayahu’s and Yirmiyahu’s prophecies are in turn based on the promise at the end of the curses of Parashat B’chukotai. “Yet

The Rejection of Rejection

Even when Israel suffer exile and find themselves “in the land of their enemies,” they will remain the children of God’s covenant, which He will not break because God does not abandon His people. They may be faithless to Him. He will not be faithless to them.

in spite of this, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away..., nor break My covenant with them: for I am Hashem their God.” God may send His people into exile, but they remain His people, and He will bring them back.

This is not an isolated verse. A careful examination of the whole Torah reveals an underlying principle, namely the rejection of rejection. At first, God rejects humanity, saving only Noah, when He sees the world full of violence. Yet, after the Flood, He vows: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done” (B’reishit 8.21). That is the first rejection of rejection.

Then come a series of sibling rivalries. The covenant passes through Yitzchak, not Yishmael, Yaakov not Esav. But God sees Hagar and Yishmael’s tears. Evidently, He hears Esav’s also, for He later commands, “Do not despise an Edomite [i.e., a descendant of Esav] because he is your brother” (D’varim 23:8). Finally, God brings it about that Levi, one of the children Yaakov curses on his deathbed—“Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel” (B’reishit 49.6)—becomes the father of Israel’s spiritual leaders, Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam. From now on, all Israel are chosen. That is the second rejection of rejection.

Even when Israel suffer exile and find themselves “in the land of their enemies,” they will remain the children of God’s covenant, which He will not break because God does not abandon His people. They may be faithless to Him. He will not be faithless to them. That is the third rejection of rejection, stated in this parashah, reiterated by Yishayahu, Yirmiyahu, and Y’chezkel. The God of Abraham keeps His promises.

Thus, the claim on which Replacement or Supersessionist theology is based—that God rejects His people because they rejected Him—is unthinkable in terms of Abrahamic monotheism. God keeps His word even if others break theirs. God does not, will not, abandon His people. The covenant with Abraham, given content at Mount Sinai, and renewed at every critical juncture in

Israel’s history since, is still in force, undiminished, unqualified, unbreakable.

I write this because of what has happened to the Catholic Church after Pope John XXIII met Jules Isaac and realized the historic depth and tragic consequences of the Adversus Judaeos (‘‘Against the Jews”) tradition within the early church. Having set in motion the historic change in the Church’s relationship with the Jews, codified in the Nostra Aetate declaration (1965), his precedent was followed by Pope John Paul II and his successor Benedict XVI. On September 12, 2013, Pope Francis took the reconsideration further still. In an open letter to the editor of an Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, he wrote: “God’s fidelity to the close covenant with Israel never failed, and...through the terrible trials of these centuries, the Jews have kept their faith in God. And for this, we shall never be sufficiently grateful to them as a Church, but also as humanity.”

In November 2013, in the course of the declaration Evangelii Gaudium, he wrote that “the friendship that has grown” between Jews and Christians “makes us bitterly and sincerely regret the terrible persecutions which they have endured and continue to endure, especially those that have involved Christians.” The Catholic Church, he added, holds “the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked.”

That truth, denied by many within the Church over the course of centuries, has now been firmly acknowledged by Pope Francis in one of the great transformations in religious history. God’s promise through Moshe and the prophets that His covenant with the Jewish people would never be revoked remains true, and is now seen to be so not only by Jews but also by the head of the Catholic Church.

The Old Testament is not old. God’s relationship with the Jewish people is still alive, still strong. Acknowledgement of this fact has changed the relationship between Christians and Jews and helped begin to wipe away many centuries of tears.

—Adapted from the writings of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

SCHEDULE OF SERVICESTuesday evening, May 30

8:00 p.m., Shavuot evening service, followed by a light Shavuot supper and our Tikkun Leil ShavuotWednesday morning, May 31

9:30 a.m., Morning service begins. 11:15 a.m. (approx.), Yizkor will be recited

There will be no service on Thursday, June 1.Shavuot ends at 9:06 p.m. Thursday, June 1.

May He who blessed | מי שברךMay He who blessed our ancestors bless and heal all those whose names are listed here, those whose names will be called out,

and those whose names we do not know because either we are unaware of their illness or they are.We pray He mercifully quickly restore them to health and vigor. May He grant physical and spiritual well-being to all who are ill. אמן

Sydelle KleinBonnie Pritzker AppelbaumDeenah bat Sarah LeahRut bat EstherMiriam Zelda bat Gittel D’vorahMiriam Chanah Sarah bat LibaMiriam Rachel bat ChanahHarav Mordechai Volff ben Liba MiryamAdina bat FreidelBaila bat D’vorahChavah bat SarahChayah bat FloraEsther bat D’vorahHaRav Ilana Chaya bat Rachel EstherLiba Ruchel bat MichlahMasha bat EtlMasha bat RochelMatel bat FrimahMindel bat D’vorahNinette bat Aziza

Pinyuh bat SurahRita bat FloraRifkah bat ChanahSarah bat MalkaSarah Rifka bat SarahShimona bat FloraSura Osnat bat Alta ChayahTzipporah bat YaffaYospeh Perel bat MichlahMichelle BlatteisDiane FowlerFay JohnsonKatie KimElaine LaikinMira LevyRobin LevyKaren LipsyKathleen McCartyGail SchenkerNorma Sugerman

Mary ThompsonAharon Hakohen ben OodelAvraham Shmarya ben GittelAvraham Yitzhak ben MashaChaim ben GoldaEzra ben LuliGil Nechemiah ben YisraelaMoshe ben ShimonNaftali ben RachelHarav R’fael Eliyahu ben Esther MalkahHarav Shimon Shlomo ben Taube v’AvrahamYehudah ben LeahYisrael Yitzhak ben ShayndelYitzchak ben TziviaYonatan ben MalkaZelig Herschel ben KreintzehHarry IkensonShannon JohnsonItzik KhmishmanGabriel Neri

We pray for their safe return...May He who blessed our ancestors bless, preserve, and protect the captive and missing

soldiers of Tzahal—Ron Arad, Zecharia Baumel, Guy Chever, Zvi Feldman, Yekutiel Katz, and Zeev Rotshik—as well as those U.S. and allied soldiers, and the civilians working with them and around them, still missing in Afghanistan and Iraq, and all other areas of conflict, past and present.

And may He bless the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces and Tzahal, and those who serve the United States and Israel in foreign lands in whatever capacity, official or unofficial, members of our community or related to members, and their colleagues and companions. Guide them in peace and return them speedily to their families alive and unharmed. אמן

OUR VIRTUAL MEMORIAL BOARD

IS IN PLACE.

CALL THE OFFICE TO ADD THE NAMES

OF YOUR LOVED ONES

TO OUR MEMORIAL BOARD.

yahrzeits for today through next FRIDAY!May their memories be for a blessing — זכרונם לברכה Kaddish list

Regina BlankSelim ChamuelYaakov ChamuelSamuel DeutschLenore DreyfussDr. Jerry FinklesteinBlanche FriedmanHonora GershmanLawrence GlazerMoshe GlickmanClairice Estelle GreenbergFrieda GutfriendJeanette Shandolow HermanCara Horowitz

Rebecca KaplanFred B. KatzHaviva KhedouriPeter KoenigAlvin KrooksLeon LevyAlan LinickHarold RappoportDeborah Frankel ReeseCarl RoseDavid ShandalowPaul SingmanIsabelle SokoloffEd SoleimaniAlan SilversteinFrieda Suhotliv

20 Sol Zelmanowitz

Moshe Anidjar

Joseph Weingarten*

Sarah S. Cohen*

21 Alan Belson, David and Adam’s father, Leslie Petersen’s husband

Hyman Freesman*

Louis Goldberg

Toby Lipp*

22 Mildred Dematz, Elaine Laikin’s sister

Naomi Kaminsky, mother of Bernard Kaminsky

Dr. Alfred Kirschner*

Florence Ehrlich*

23 Ida Singer*

Philip Weiss*

Anna Schlesinger*

Elka Diner*

24 Alex Armus*

Yisrael Yershov

Yehudis Rosenbaum*

25 Rose Levitt Morris*

Sarah Esther Blum*

Max Gerson*

Michael Brett Ross*

Tzvetla Sachs*

26 Herman Seligman*

Selma Ikenson, Harry Ikenson’s mother

Dr. J. J. Solan*

Benjamin Ehrlich** There is a plaque in this person’s name on our memorial board.

Are we in your will?Shouldn’t we be?

When people prepare their wills, they usually look to leave a mark beyond the confines of their families. Thus it is that general gifts are left to hospitals, and other charitable organizations.

All too often ignored, however, is the synagogue, even though its role in a person's life often begins at birth, and continues even beyond death. We come here on Yom Kippur and other days, after all, to say Yizkor, the memorial prayer remembering our loved ones.

Our Virtual Memorial Plaques remind everyone of who our loved ones were, and why we recall them. All of us join in saying the Kaddish on their yahrzeits.

Considering this, it is so unfortunate that, in our final act, we ignore the one institution in Jewish life that is so much a part of us.

The synagogue is here for us because those who came before us understood its importance and prepared for its preservation. By remembering it in our wills, we will do our part to assure that the synagogue will be there for future generations, as well.

Think about it. We have always been here for anyone who needed us in the past. Do not those who need us in the future have the same right to our help?

Of course they do. Do not delay! Act today!Help secure the future of your communal home.

Form of bequest to CBIOTPThe following form is suggested

for guidance in preparing a bequest:

I, the undersigned, give and bequeath to Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisades, or its successor, the sum of $_______ for its educational and religious work.Signed: Date: Witness 1: Witness 2:

Congregation Beth Israel of the Palisadesק״ק בית ישראל של הפליסד207 Edgewater Road, Cliffside Park, NJ 07010-2201

207 Edgewater Road

Cliffside Park, NJ 07010-2201

Office: 201-945-7310;

Fax: 201-945-0863

websiteL www.cbiotp.org

general e-mail: shul@cbiotp.org

Shabbat ends tonight with havdalah at 8:56 p.m. DST

Attention All Vets!If you’re not yet a member of

JWV Post 76,YOU SHOULD BE!

For more information, call 201-869-6218

SHAVUOT IS COMING!

Sign up by May 25 for the light Shavuot supper

at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 30, and plan to attend the TIKKUN LEIL SHAVUOT night of Torah study

beginning at 9 p.m. that night.

Shammai Engelmayer, Rabbi rabbi@cbiotp.orgJerry Blum, Chazzan chazzan@cbiotp.orgNadia Massuda, Co-President nadia@cbiotp.orgCraig H. Bassett, Co-President craigbassett@cbiotp.orgJudy Golub, Vice-President judygolub@cbiotp.orgErrol Kaget, Secretary membership@cbiotp.orgAl Glick, Co-Treasurer alglick@cbiotp.orgGarrison D. Miller, Co-Treasurer garymiller@cbiotp.org